Summary

Our Score

Despite its low price the RS1000's build quality is fairly good. The plastic body feels light and a bit insubstantial, but the panel joins are nice and tight, and the low weight works to its advantage. If dropped it's more likely to bounce than to smash. The tripod bush is plastic, as is the battery/card hatch, which has no locking catch and feels a bit flimsy. The USB socket is uncovered, leaving it prone to dirt and dust. The screws that hold the front cover in place are very small and fiddly, and their short threads and the brass bushes into which they locate look ripe for a stripped thread if over-tightened. The RS1000 is extremely small and very light, measuring just 92 x 56 x 20.5mm and weighing only 130g including battery and SD memory card. It's even smaller and lighter than the Optio H90.
The RS1000 shares its main features with other recent Pentax low-cost compacts, including the H90, the I-10 and the M90. It offers a choice of Program auto, full auto with scene selection, and a list of 15 scene modes, including the usual selection of portrait, night scene, sports, kids etcetera. The menu is very basic, but options do include a shadow correction mode for increased dynamic range. It lacks some common Pentax shooting options such as digital filters and RGB/CSS tone control, however filter effects, red-eye correction and the inevitable Frame Composites can be applied in playback mode.
HD video recording has indeed become ubiquitous when even a camera as basic as the RS1000 can offer 1280 x 720 resolution recording at 30fps. Sound is recorded in mono only of course, and the optical zoom cannot be used while shooting, but the video quality is surprisingly good, even in low light.